He's already the London Marathon receives 840,000 applications, beating favourite Jacob Ingebrigtsen in Hungary this year, and has his sights on Olympic glory in Paris next year, but could Josh Kerr be our next endurance star too? Running gossip was buzzing after the weekend when Kerr ran 61:51 at the San Diego holiday half marathon, putting him around 24th on the UK all time list – pretty impressive for a middle distance runner in the depths of an Olympic cycle.

Naturally Paris is his primary goal, but is there a more 'serious' half marathon attempt in his future? 'That's a great question' he says to Runner's World. 'Yes, definitely. I think the transition for me is that I want to maybe pace a major marathon at some point – maybe through the half marathon mark, or if it's through a little bit further, that would be pretty cool. But I needed to make sure that I had the ability. But now I know that I do have the ability, I think that it would be fun to maybe help out some Brooks athletes [Kerr is sponsored by Brooks] and just be in a really cool environment, rub shoulders with those guys. It's a total different sport. It's very difficult to move from the 1500m to 13.1 miles but I enjoy the long stuff.'

When asked about the half marathon race itself, he laughs: 'It's a controversial PB! Downhill half marathon on a non-certified course!' But as he says, the aim was simply to run the race faster than his debut at the event last year. 'We love to challenge ourselves at the end of a big winter training block' he explains (he works very closely with coach Danny Mackey in the US, and often talks of 'we' rather than 'I' when it comes to racing and training).

'There's not a lot of local races that we can do in the US, it isn't like the UK, I can't really just go down to any cross countries,' he explains. 'So we like to do something that's got a bit of competition, a bit more relevance, and go through all the emotions of racing. We were like, you know what, we're going to bite off more than we can chew and we're going to go out hard and, and we did that. It's a reference point, a point in training to be like, OK, this is where we're at, and we're in a good spot.'

That spot was indeed two minutes faster than in the same race a year before. But as Kerr remarks, while a downhill course might sound an advantage, it poses its own particular challenges, particularly when it comes to recovery. 'It's very tough on the legs! But I responded much better than I did last year, which I couldn't walk for about a week. But now it's just two and a half days and I'm starting being able to walk – so look at us go!'

Meanwhile training for the Olympics carries on. Kerr's next race will be at the Millrose Games in New York in February, where excitingly he will be going for the world record at 2 miles, currently held by Jakob Ingebrigtsen Health & Injuries.

'The Millrose Games is one of the most exciting indoor races there is in the circuit,' explains Kerr, 'so that will be the focal point. There's some fast times to be run. Originally it was going to be the 3km and then we thought why don't we push up to that two miles and see if we can run something really fast. It's what gets me excited right now, and I think that's what's really important coming into the Olympic year, having those short-term exciting goals that get you up, and get you doing the work. So, you know, we'll be going out a world record pace and we'll see what happens!' At the very least, one imagines Mo Farah's European record of 8:04 is under serious threat.

Then the month after the Millrose Games, March 2024, sees the World Indoor Championships take place in Kerr's hometown of Glasgow. 'It's massively cool,' he says. 'Though it's tough to hear the Americans talk about Glaasss-gow! I'm like, come on guys, we're better than that!' However, he's not sure yet if competing will be on the agenda for him ≠that's an ongoing conversation with his coach – but whatever happens, he says, 'I'm really excited to try and be a part of it. If that's going to be racing, or if that's going to be there watching or helping teammates, I'm not too sure.' Home fans will naturally be hoping for the former, but the team will undoubtedly also appreciate the latter.